Podcast

The first World Data Forum was held in Cape Town, South Africa earlier this year. The gathering brought together statisticians, data scientists, business people, public officials and NGOs to learn from each other about how data are being used to measure and drive progress globally.

In this episode, marking the end of the first season of Between 2 Geeks, I share some highlights from the event.

The World Bank hosted a session on “The Future of Data” where the recurring theme was “data integration” - combining multiple sources of data, from multiple types of organization, with multiple types of technology and approach to offer insights that are greater than the sum of their parts. You can watch a video of the whole session here and in the podcast, hear from Mark Ryland of Amazon Web Services, Molly Jackman of Facebook and Andy Tatem of the World Pop Project and University of Southampton.

I also spoke with Anna Rosling Rönnlund of Gapminder who told me about her organization’s journey to make data more understandable and to help promote a fact-based world view. One of the projects they were demonstrating is Dollar Street - a site that lets you explore photographs of the everyday life and possessions of the poorest to the richest people around the world. What’s striking is how similar life looks for someone living on say $100/month in almost any country you care to look at.

Well, it comes from household surveys! To learn more about what it takes to collect these data, we talk to Diane Steele, who’s the Household Survey Coordinator of the Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) program here at the World Bank. The LSMS program works with countries to help them collect high-quality household survey data, and also to improve the methods used to collect it.

In this episode, Diane tells us about what it takes to put together a household survey. Among other things, you’ve got to design a questionnaire - but how do you make sure that you’re asking the right questions? And you need to design a sample - but how do you know how large of a sample you need in order for the survey to be nationally representative? And you need to train your interviewers properly - but how do you know that they’ve understood the process clearly?

Renewable energy seems to be getting cheaper than ever, and we ask the question: are we reaching a “tipping point” where renewable energy is cheaper to produce than energy from fossil fuels.

In our discussion with Mafalda Duarte, head of the $8.3 billion Climate Investment Funds (CIF), I learned that renewable energy (in this case, concentrated solar power) is a bit more complicated than just finding somewhere sufficiently sunny or windy. For example, the concentrated solar power (CSP) technology being used in Noor Ouarzazate is relatively new and so more expensive. With the investment CIF is making, the cost of the CSP technology can be driven down, and the tipping point reached faster for other countries wanting to adopt the technology.

So what are the issues of geography, politics, technology and economics when it comes to large scale renewable energy, and how can we influence them to help countries reach the tipping point where renewable energy becomes the best option?

Globally, there are over 98 mobile subscriptions per 100 people, so the chances are, you have a cell phone. Now look at your recent calls, both sent and received: Who do you call most often? Who calls you the most? Do you send, or receive more calls? All this is cell phone metadata: not the content of the calls, but ancillary information, the “who, where and when”.

It’s information that can reveal a lot about you. Your cellphone carrier already uses it to bill you, and may also be using it to target marketing or special offers at you. And with appropriate privacy protections, it can offer researchers a similar opportunity. In this week’s episode of Between 2 Geeks we ask how cellphone metadata (“call detail records”) can help researchers understand entire societies.

That’s a startling statement about something that’s 30 years in the future. One group with a record of making such long-range projections is demographers like Dr. John May with the Population Reference Bureau.

In our discussion with John, he explains that the growth and structure of populations is linked to one fundamental issue: mortality rates. When infant and child mortality rates decline, fertility rates also eventually decline and population growth slows down. And as life expectancies increase, the share of older people in a country’s population goes up.

But it turns out things are a bit more complicated than that, and there are large implications for public policy that are ultimately driven by demography.

Not only is there a story behind every number, but numbers can help to tell the story of development.

That’s the idea behind a new podcast - “Between 2 Geeks” in which Raka, Andrew and I, talk to folks who create and use data, as they work across the field of international development.

We’ve got a great lineup of guests, and discuss topics including Africa’s “demographic dividend” - how population structures are shaping the future of the region; a new risk insurance mechanism designed to help stop pandemics like the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak; and how metadata from cell phone networks can be used to estimate measures of migration and poverty.

Just like the forest map, I’ve found each episode to be a peek into the rabbit hole of a new subject - I’ve learned how to better communicate about uncertainty, the economics of large scale renewable energy systems, and what the future of how data is produced and used may look like.

We’ve really enjoyed making the first series of this podcast and we hope you’ll tune in. The opening episode will be available on Tuesday April 4th - it’ll be posted here on The Data Blog, on the World Bank’s SoundCloud channel, and you can subscribe to “World Bank’s Podcasts” in your podcast app or on iTunes.

These are some of the views and reports relevant to our readers that caught our attention this week.

For Every Child, End AIDS: Seventh Stocktaking Report, 2016
UNICEF
Despite remarkable achievements in the prevention and treatment of HIV, this report finds that progress has been uneven globally. In 2015, more than half of the world’s new infections (1.1 million out of 2.1 million) were among women, children and adolescents, and nearly 2 million adolescents aged 10–19 were living with HIV. In sub-Saharan Africa, the region most impacted by HIV, three in four new infections in 15–19-year-olds were among girls. The report proposes strategies for preventing HIV among women, children and adolescents who have been left behind, and treating those who are living with HIV.

Navigating Complexity: Climate, Migration, and Conflict in a Changing WorldWilson Center/USAID Office of Conflict Management and MitigationClimate change is expected to contribute to the movement of people through a variety of means. There is also significant concern climate change may influence violent conflict. But our understanding of these dynamics is evolving quickly and sometimes producing surprising results. There are considerable misconceptions about why people move, how many move, and what effects they have. In a discussion paper for USAID’s Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation, the Environmental Change and Security Program presents a guide to this controversial and consequential nexus of global trends. Building off a workshop held at the Wilson Center last year, we provide a background scan of relevant literature and an in-depth analysis of the high-profile cases of Darfur and Syria to discern policy-relevant lessons from the latest research.

Podcasts are more popular than ever, thanks in large part to the wildly successful This American Life produced, Serial, and the rise of smartphones and Bluetooth enabled cars, that allow listeners to stream podcasts practically anywhere.

At the World Bank Group, Senior Communications Officer, Richard Miron has produced a new podcast series, called Bookmark that explores the creative literary works of staff members.

Each week, Richard interviews a variety of staff members, past and present, who have put pen to paper and written books of their own. It’s not about World Bank books, but rather the expansive literary talent that work at the Bank.

Richard explains the thinking behind the series:

“The people of the World Bank are what makes the institution tick. They come with different experiences and from differing backgrounds. The aim of Bookmark is to show– ‘the literary side’ of those at the Bank, and to illustrate how their work has contributed to their writing and how their experience in writing has added to their work.”

The first episode features Agi Kiss, who currently works as a Regional Environmental and Safeguards Advisor. During her career at the World Bank Group, Agi worked in Nairobi, Kenya, managing a wildlife and protected areas project. She went on a number of safaris to explore the country.